Drugs = Mass Incarceration?

 Hello everyone! Welcome (or welcome back)! For the past week or two, I've been reading The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. Today I'll be getting into the relevance of the book. Usually, when one describes the "relevance" of something, they're forging a connection between a topic and a current event. However, in the case of the section I most recently read, the topic is a current event. Alexander uses the second segment of her book to describe the depth of the prejudiced system that exists, and how it came to be. So, some of the specific examples or "connections" that I use might be from an early point in the book. 

The second segment of The New Jim Crow delves heavily into criminalization based on drug use. Drug charges (particular minor/trumped-up charges) played a large roll in the birth of America's system of mass incarceration. This was largely due to new search and seizure laws. Originally, law enforcement couldn't go on unwarranted "crusades," picking people off the street and searching them as they pleased; this would be a huge violation of rights. However, in 1968, after Terry vs Ohio, this changed. It was stated that if a police officer observed "unusual conduct" or believes someone to be "dangerous and engaged in criminal activity," the officer is entitled to conduct a search for the "protection of himself and others in the area" (63). This is known as the stop-and-frisk rule, and is still in action today. (I suppose that the frequency at which unwarranted searches still happen proves the relevance of this information.) This Supreme Court ruling made blatant discrimination easy. More and more black citizens were being singled out and asked for "consent" to raid their belongs- more often than not, this consent was given out of pure fear or intimidation. 

With the War on Drugs came the mass incarceration of many black citizens. As fear and intimidation ran rampant, the pressure to plead guilty increased, and their (largely white) prosecutors were left to decide their fate (87). Some of these (incarcerated) people were in for the most trivial charges and only spent a matter of months in the system- others spent years. I didn't matter. Upon returning to society, these individuals would be viewed as entirely different, their legal standing in the country forever changed. There's a chance that some of these people were either innocent or falsely arrested; however, as Alexander pointed out, many of them wouldn't be able to afford a lawyer, and therefore their case would never be reopened. It's a bit funny- earlier in the book, Alexander referenced the creation of the Fifteenth Amendment, which states that "the right to vote should not be denied on account of race" (29). Yet here were are in 2021- "5.2 Americans are barred from voting due to felony disenfranchisement laws," the vast majority of whom are black (Nellis). Perhaps we truly are living in the new Jim Crow. 

So, so many black Americans live in fear of "police harassment, retaliation, and abuse," and they have good reason (69). They know that the system is working against them; there have been too many "cautionary tales," and it truly seems as though no mistakes can be afforded. Just look at Breonna Taylor, who was innocently shot in the confines of her own apartment, or George Floyd, who was suffocated to death by an officer (Oppel). These two examples are obviously quite well known- they sparked a series of protests throughout the U.S. However, they are two of many. 

We live in a country ridden with racism and inequality, hidden as it may be. If Alexander's book has taught me anything thus far, it's this- we cannot simply watch these horrifying events unfold, and be silent and compliant. We need to work eradicate America's current racial caste system, and prevent one from ever forming again. 

Works Cited

Nellis, Ashley. "The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons." The Sentencing Project, 14 June 2016, www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons/. Accessed 11 Mar. 2021.

Oppel, Richard A., Jr, et al. "What to Know about Breonna Taylor's Death." The New York Times, 6 Jan. 2021, www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html. Accessed 11 Mar. 2021.